A week later at California, Logano and Hamlin were racing for the lead on the final lap when they made contact and crashed, an incident that left Hamlin with a fractured vertebra in his lower back. He will miss at least the next five races.

In the same race, Logano blocked Stewart on the final restart, infuriating Stewart and causing him to go after Logano after the race. Stewart shoved Logano and took a swing at him, and Logano threw a water bottle at Stewart. Both drivers were restrained by their crews before Stewart ripped Logano in postrace interviews.

Ryan Newman, Stewart's teammate at Stewart-Haas Racing, says Stewart had a right to mad at California. He doesn't know how his teammate will react at Martinsville.

"I don’t know if they’ve talked, plan on talking or never will talk again," Newman said Tuesday. "I think there were true frustrations in the blocking. I think blocking is a chicken way to drive. That’s just something I don’t do.

"If you have a run on me, take it. If I can get through the corner better than you, then we’ll race. Blocking is an IndyCar form or F-1 form or an open-wheel type of move, it seems like. Not to say they don’t do it in NASCAR, obviously they do, but to me it’s just a chicken way of driving and not very respectable for the guys around you. You’re there to race, you’re not there to block.

"I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if there will be retaliation, I don’t know if they’ll talk and never have retaliation. Who knows? Good question."

Fox and Speed analyst Darrell Waltrip says the temperamental Stewart might have been reacting to the heat of the moment at California and could be fine now with Logano.

“I love Tony, but he has a tendency to have a temper,” Waltrip said in comments distributed by Speed. “He’s a clone of AJ Foyt. Tony will blow up and fight you on Sunday, and then have a beer with you on Monday. That’s how he is. He has to vent.

“Tony will let you know how he feels and I think he was just taking his frustrations out on the first thing he could think of, and that was Logano. He’ll let you know how he feels, but he might be fine the next day.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that Logano is out of the clear. Waltrip, a three-time champion who was involved in numerous feuds throughout his career, says Logano could still be targeted by friends of Stewart and Hamlin.

“People won’t cut him any slack,” Waltrip said of Logano, who has had issues with several drivers the past few years. “Tony has buddies and Denny has buddies, and those buddies sometimes mess with you because you messed with their buddy.

“If you cut off Tony at Martinsville, he’ll probably put you in the wall. Tony won’t take any crap. Logano is smart enough to know that and we’re all smart enough to be watching for it.”

Waltrip said Martinsville is the logical track for some payback by Logano or Stewart, or by any drivers that have differences to settle.

The half-mile track lends itself to frequent bumping and banging and is also a track where drivers can send each other into the wall or into a spin without fear of injury. In 2011, Brian Vickers retaliated against Kenseth for spinning him earlier in the race at Martinsville.

Another feud to watch is the ongoing dispute by Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer, which also started in this race last year when Bowyer wrecked Gordon and teammate Jimmie Johnson during a battle for the lead on the final restart. Seven months later, Gordon intentionally wrecked Bowyer at Phoenix, damaging his championship hopes.

Though Bowyer and Gordon have tried to downplay the incident going into this season, hard feelings between the two still linger.

“Drivers always say, ‘I’ll get him back on a short track or when we get to Martinsville,’ because that’s the old-school mentality,” Waltrip said. “Martinsville and Bristol used to be the only places we could get a rival back and not hurt him.

“… We’d wait until we got to one of the smaller tracks and then park the guy if we could. These guys today have a few more liberties than we did back then because of the way the cars are and the safety features we didn’t have.”

Newman said he will be conscious of feuds and potential payback and watch who he is racing at Martinsville.

"You have to know what’s going on and watch out for the dramas, but at the same time I have a race of my own to run," he said. "Part of that is watching out for what’s going on, whether it’s something that has carried over from the past few weeks or something that has happened that day.

"You have to keep tabs on who turns who and where everybody is at on their scorecard when you go through a race like Martinsville."

While all eyes will be on Logano and Stewart this weekend, Logano also has Hamlin to think about.

Though the two became bitter rivals after their blow-up at Bristol, Logano public expressed his concern for Hamlin’s injury last week and said he did not wreck him intentionally at California.

Hamlin didn’t seem to take Logano’s sentiments to heart, though, saying a text message exchange between the two “didn’t go well.”

Hamlin will be replaced by veteran Mark Martin at Martinsville and then by Brian Vickers for at least the next four races.

Waltrip said he doesn’t expect any lingering problems between Hamlin and Logano when Hamlin returns.

“You always have remorse, even with your worst enemy, if it’s something you were involved in,” Waltrip said. “You may not verbally express that, but deep down inside, you don’t want to see somebody get hurt. You just want to beat them. You don’t want to wreck them to win.”

Waltrip says Logano can’t go to Martinsville worried about Stewart and can’t worry about what might happen when Hamlin returns.

“You don’t want to spend all your time worrying about one guy,” Waltrip said. “It becomes a problem when you only want to know ‘Where is Denny? Where is Tony? What is he doing?’ When you let one guy dictate your race and consume all your time and energy, that becomes a problem.

“You want to deal with your rival on an as-needed basis. Your best bet is to stay away from him and not have to worry about where he is or will he retaliate. If you’re up front and he’s in the back, that’s as good as it can get in a rivalry.

“You can mouth off at him or about him — that’s fun — but you can’t let that one guy distract you from doing your job.”